Region

HODEIDA, Yemen — The US military said on Sunday its Navy helicopters fired at Iran-backed Houthi rebel boats off Yemen that were attacking a cargo ship, with Yemeni sources reporting 10 rebels killed.

The clash in the Red Sea marked a deadly escalation since the United States set up a multinational naval task force in early December to protect the vital shipping lane against Houthi attacks.

The rebels, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza, have repeatedly fired drones and missiles at passing ships in the straits through which 12 percent of global trade passes.

US Central Command said the Navy had responded to a distress call from the Maersk Hangzhou, a Singapore-flagged, Denmark-owned and operated container ship that reported coming under attack for a second time in 24 hours while transiting the Red Sea.

The vessel had earlier been targeted with two anti-ship ballistic missiles. One was shot down by the US military and the other hit the Maersk Hangzhou.

The Huthis had then fired on US helicopters, which "returned fire in self-defence", sinking three of four small boats that had come within 20 meters of the ship, according to the CENTCOM statement.

It said the crews of the three vessels were killed while a fourth boat fled the area.

“Ten Houthis were killed and two were wounded in the US strike on Houthi boats that tried to stop a vessel in the sea off Hodeida,” said a source, who asked not to be named, at Yemen’s rebel-controlled Hodeida Port.

Another port source, also requesting anonymity, said that “four survivors have arrived in Hodeida with two wounded who were taken to hospital”.

Maersk suspended the passage of its vessels through the Red Sea strait for 48 hours after the latest of about two dozen attacks by Houthis on international shipping in six weeks.

The cargo ship, en route from Singapore to Egypt’s Port Suez, had made an earlier distress call after it was struck by the Huthi missile. 

CENTCOM said that assault was the 23rd illegal attack by the Huthis on international shipping since November 19.

The vessel appeared to be undamaged and “was able to continue its transit north”, Maersk, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, said in a statement.

The cargo ship was then fired on by four Huthi rebel vessels that attempted to board the vessel, according to the shipping company.

“In light of the incident, and to allow time to investigate the details of the incident and assess the security situation further — it has been decided to delay all transits through the area for the next 48 hours,” it added.

Regional tensions have spiked since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

Israel has been pounding the besieged Palestinian territory relentlessly since the Hamas militant group launched an unprecedented attacked on October 7.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and a ground offensive have killed 21,672 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

US forces in Iraq and Syria have also repeatedly come under fire from drone and rocket attacks that Washington says are being carried out by Iran-backed armed groups.

And Israel has traded regular cross-border fire with the Iran-backed Hizbollah movement in Lebanon.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Far-right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday called for the return of Jewish settlers to the Gaza Strip after the war and said its Palestinian population should be encouraged to emigrate.

Israel launched a relentless military campaign against Hamas in Gaza after the Palestinian militants carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.

"To have security we must control the territory," Smotrich told Israel's Army Radio in response to a question about the prospect of re-establishing settlements in Gaza.

"In order to control the territory militarily for a long time, we need a civilian presence."

The Israeli government under prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not officially suggested plans to evict Gazans or to send Jewish settlers back to the territory since the war broke out on October 7.

Israel unilaterally withdrew the last of its troops and settlers in 2005, ending a presence inside Gaza that began in 1967 but maintaining near complete control over the territory's borders.

All settlements on occupied Palestinian land are regarded as illegal under international law, regardless of whether they were approved by Israel.

Smotrich, head of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism Party that is part of the ruling coalition, also said Israel should "encourage" the territory's approximately 2.4 million Palestinians to relocate to other countries.

“If we act in a strategically correct way and encourage emigration, if there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not 2 million, the whole discourse of the day after [the war] will be completely different,” he said.

“We will help rehabilitate these refugees in other countries in a good and humane manner with the cooperation of the international community and Arab countries around us.”

Despite its withdrawal in 2005, Israel imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the territory and is still regarded internationally as an occupying power in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s ongoing Gaza offensive has killed more than 21,800 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

As heavy combat rages on, 85 per cent of people in Gaza have been displaced, according to the United Nations.

BEIRUT — More than 4,360 people, including combatants and civilians, were killed in Syria's civil war in 2023, in the thirteenth year since fighting began, a war monitor said on Sunday.

The figure was an increase on 2022, when 3,825 people were killed.

That was the lowest annual death toll since the conflict began in 2011 said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

This year's count included 1,889 civilians, 241 of them women and 307 children, according to the United Kingdom-based observatory, which has a broad network of sources inside Syria.

Syrian government forces accounted for almost 900 of the dead this year, with other fighters including from the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, pro-Iran groups, Islamist factions, the Daesh extremist group fighters and foreign combatants accounting for the rest.

Over the years, the country's conflict spiralled dramatically. It pulled in foreign armies, militias and terrorists, killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and ravaged the country's infrastructure and industry.

With Iranian and Russian support, Damascus has clawed back much of the territory it lost earlier in the conflict, although large parts of the country's north remain outside government control.

Front lines have mostly quietened in recent years and annual death tolls dropped to lower levels.

Nevertheless, violence persists. The Observatory reported that several people including a fighter and a child were killed on Saturday in government bombardment of "residential areas and a market" the city of Idlib.

Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a jihadist group led by Al Qaeda's former Syria branch, controls swathes of Idlib province and parts of neighbouring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces, the last major bastion of armed opposition in Syria.

A ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey was declared in Idlib after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020, but it has been repeatedly violated.

Also on Saturday, 25 pro-Iran fighters were killed in air strikes in eastern Syria "likely" carried out by Israel, the observatory said, raising an earlier toll of 23.

The dead included five Syrians, six Iraqi fighters, four from Lebanon’s Hizbollah group and 10 other non-Syrian combatants, the observatory said.

It also said eight people, including three civilians, were killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday near the airport in the main northern city of Aleppo, updating an earlier toll of four fighters killed.

Israel, which has launched hundreds of strikes on Syrian territory since the war began, rarely comments on individual attacks but has repeatedly said it will not allow its arch foe Iran to expand its presence in the country.

Israel has intensified its strikes in Syria since its war with Hamas began on October 7.

NAIROBI — The leader of Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Sunday visited Djibouti, which is leading regional efforts to broker a ceasefire after more than eight months of war.

The Horn of Africa nation is the latest stop on Mohamed Hamdan Daglo's first trip abroad since fighting erupted between the RSF and the Sudanese army in mid-April.

His regional tour, which has also taken him to Ethiopia and Uganda — comes as diplomats scramble to broker a meeting between Daglo and his rival, Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan.

The warring generals have not met face-to-face since the outbreak of the conflict that has killed more than 12,000 people by some conservative estimates, and forced millions to flee.

Daglo said on X, formerly Twitter, that he discussed with Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh the latest developments in the war.

“I outlined our unwavering commitment to ending the conflict and working towards a substantive solution that finally halts the historic suffering of our resilient Sudanese people.

“I emphasised our readiness to participate in negotiations aimed at achieving a swift, just, and comprehensive peace in Sudan.”

In another post on X, Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said the visit was part of his country’s efforts, as head of regional grouping IGAD, to try to forge a ceasefire in Sudan.

“Next week, as chair of IGAD, Djibouti will also prepare the ground for Sudanese dialogue and will host a critical meeting,” Youssouf had said on X on Saturday, without giving further details.

Daglo on Thursday met in Addis Ababa with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, after holding talks with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni the day before.

IGAD, a bloc representing eight countries in the East Africa region, has been trying to bring Burhan and Daglo together since the war erupted.

On Wednesday, Djibouti’s foreign ministry said a meeting between the rivals planned for December 28 had been “postponed to early January for technical reasons”.

The UN Security Council earlier this month voiced alarm at the growing violence in Sudan and the spread of fighting to areas previously considered a haven for those displaced by the conflict.

By the end of November, at least 12,190 people had been killed, according to a conservative estimate from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project.

The United Nations says more than seven million people have been internally displaced by the war, while another 1.5 million have fled into neighbouring countries.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes.

JENIN, Palestinian Territories — The Palestinian Freedom Theatre in the occupied West Bank will welcome actors back this weekend, just over a fortnight after an Israeli raid on the centre sparked an international outcry.

Its artistic director Ahmed Tobasi told AFP the theatre in Jenin refugee camp had become a symbol of Palestinian resistance against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

He said troops broke into and vandalised the small cultural centre earlier this month during a wider raid on Jenin, leaving behind a trail of damage and Stars of David graffitied across the walls. The theatre said soldiers also arrested several employees in their homes.

Tobasi, who said he was among those detained, is now back at work and determined to keep the centre open.

“For me, this is resistance,” the 39-year-old said as he gave AFP a tour of the theatre, which was set up in 2006.

Soon after the raid on December 13 a Freedom Theatre appeal for the release of its staff won international support, with demonstrations in the streets of New York and Paris and playwrights, actors and directors from Britain to Mexico expressing their support.

Since its founding, the unassuming performance space has become symbolic for Palestinians and their supporters, with its actors touring the world staging plays.

Staff said they believed Israeli forces had gone out of their way to target the theatre.

The Israeli forces described the wider raid on Jenin, which Palestinian health authorities say killed 11 people, as designed to combat “terrorists” in the camp.

“This is a theatre — there are no weapons or terrorists here,” Tobasi said.

While the raid targeted a number of buildings in the camp, Tobasi said that to reach the theatre troops would have needed to turn off the main road and walk around 20 metres towards its entrance.

Another staff member, Ranin Odeh, said the centre was singled out for its reputation as “a place of resistance through art”.

“I felt so angry to see Israeli soldiers inside. The theatre is like my home. They want to kill everything — not just people, but ideas too,” said the 31-year-old, who runs the theatre’s youth programme.

Staff spent several days clearing up and plan to stage their first big event, an end-of-year workshop for young actors, on Sunday.

The army has not responded to AFP’s request for comment.

Door-to-door arrests 

At the scene, Tobasi led AFP journalists past broken locks, splintered doorframes and smashed black and white photos.

“What kind of behaviour is this from soldiers?” he said, standing next to a red Star of David sprayed across a projector screen.

The theatre posted an image on social media which appears to show troops and a military vehicle just outside the building. AFP has not been able to verify the picture.

Soldiers went door to door arresting members of staff from their homes, the Freedom Theatre said in a series of online statements, adding they were among more than 100 Palestinians detained in Jenin.

Drama graduate Jamal Abu Joas was released after more than a week in detention, while producer and manager Mustafa Sheta remains in custody, said Tobasi, who was still shaken from his own ordeal.

Tobasi said he was blindfolded, had his hands cuffed behind his back and was held for more than 12 hours at the Salam checkpoint west of Jenin. He accused army reservists of beating him.

Violence in the West Bank — captured by Israel during the 1967 June War and occupied ever since — has surged following October 7.

Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 314 people in the territory, Palestinian health officials say.

Jenin’s refugee camp, a stronghold for Palestinian armed groups, is regularly targeted by Israel in deadly raids. The Palestinian health ministry says many of those killed have been civilians.

Tobasi, who was born in and grew up in the camp, said the theatre had given him a way to resist occupation without violence. It was a break from the reality of life in the camp and a chance to imagine an alternative.

Following the raid, he was more convinced than ever of the centre’s power.

“Theatre is the place where we can express, fight and resist all,” Tobasi said.

GENEVA — A UN report released today details the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, after 7 October 2023, and calls on Israel to end unlawful killings and settler violence against the Palestinian population.

 The report calls for an immediate end to the use of military weapons and means during law enforcement operations, an end to arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of Palestinians, and the lifting of discriminatory movement restrictions.

 The UN Human Rights Office has verified the deaths of 300 Palestinians from 7 October to 27 December 2023 — including 79 children — in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the sudden attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in southern Israel. Of these, Israeli forces killed at least 291 Palestinians, settlers killed eight, and one Palestinian was killed either by Israeli forces or settlers. Prior to 7 October, 200 Palestinians had already been killed in the area in 2023 — the highest number in a ten-month-period since the UN began keeping records in 2005.

 “The use of military tactics means and weapons in law enforcement contexts, the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force, and the enforcement of broad, arbitrary and discriminatory movement restrictions that affect Palestinians are extremely troubling,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, reflecting on the findings of the report.

 “The violations documented in this report repeat the pattern and nature of violations reported in the past in the context of the long-standing Israeli occupation of the West Bank. However, the intensity of the violence and repression is something that has not been seen in years,” he added.

“I call on Israel to take immediate, clear and effective steps to put an end to settler violence against the Palestinian population, to investigate all incidents of violence by settlers and Israeli  forces, to ensure effective protection of Palestinian communities against any form of forcible transfer, and to ensure the ability of herding communities displaced due to repeated attacks by armed settlers to return to their lands.”

The report, which covered the period from 7 October to 20 November, described a sharp increase in air strikes as well as in incursions by armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers sent to refugee camps and other densely populated areas in the West Bank, resulting in deaths, injuries and extensive damage to civilian objects and infrastructure. These incursions, which continue to take place, have resulted in the death of at least 105 Palestinians, among them 23 children, since 7 October up to today.

 In one of these instances, on 19 and 20 October, during a 30 hour-long incursion into Nur Shams Refugee Camp in Tulkarem, Israeli forces using military weaponry and means of engagement killed 14 Palestinians, including six children, wounded at least 20 others, and arrested 10 Palestinians, the report said. 

 Israeli forces have arrested more than 4,700 Palestinians, including about 40 journalists, in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Some were stripped naked, blindfolded and restrained for long hours with handcuffs and with their legs tied, while Israeli forces stepped on their heads and backs, were spat at, slammed against walls, threatened, insulted, humiliated and in some cases subjected to sexual and gender-based violence, the report describes.

 In the weeks following 7 October, there has also been a sharp rise in settler attacks with an average of six incidents per day, such as shootings, burning of homes and vehicles, and uprooting of trees. In many incidents, settlers were accompanied by Israeli forces, or were themselves wearing Israeli forces’ uniforms, and carrying army rifles, the report said. The UN Human Rights Office documented multiple incidents of settlers attacking Palestinians harvesting their olives, including with firearms, and forcing them to leave their land, stealing their harvest and poisoning or vandalising their olive trees, depriving many Palestinians of a vital source of income.

 “The de-humanisation of Palestinians that characterises many of the settlers’ actions is very disturbing and must cease immediately. Israeli authorities should strongly censure and prevent settler violence and prosecute both its instigators and perpetrators,” said the UN Human Rights Chief.

Since 7 October, Israeli authorities have imposed severe and systematic restrictions on the movement of Palestinians across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the report said. The Israeli forces has closed almost all entrances to Palestinian villages and towns to vehicular access and disconnected Palestinian cities and towns from main roads by closing road gates and placing earth mounds or concrete roadblocks.  

“The report reiterates our calls for a halt to measures that lead to the creation of a coercive environment and concerns regarding forcible transfer, in addition to the continued lack of accountability for settler and Israeli forces’ violence,” said Türk.

The High Commissioner urged Israel to grant the UN Human Rights Office access to the country, adding it was ready to report similarly on the 7 October attacks.

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man during an overnight raid on Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, the territory's health ministry said on Thursday.

The military said its forces had targeted money exchange shops in Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank, accusing the businesses of providing funds to Palestinian militant groups.

An AFP journalist saw Palestinians hurl Molotov cocktails at the forces in Ramallah. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its medics treated eight people for gunshot wounds.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and regularly carries out raids there, though they are far less common in the territory's institutional heart Ramallah.

The Red Crescent said medics also treated people wounded by Israeli forces across the West Bank, in the governorates of Hebron, Jericho, Jenin and Nablus.

In Ramallah, the AFP journalist saw a damaged exchange shop with smashed glass across the floor.

Official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported Israeli forces "stormed a number of money exchange shops, seized their contents and detained a number of their owners".

Surging violence has seen 522 Palestinians killed in the West Bank this year by Israeli security forces and settlers, according to a health ministry toll, 314 of them since the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza on October 7.